by Jagger, Kait
‘Ah, great, babe. You’re a lifesaver.’
‘How’re things going with your Swedish prince anyway?’
‘Erm, fine.’
‘Fine is right, damn fine.’
‘Yes, well…’
‘What’s up with you?’ Kayla demanded. And then, ‘He’s with you right now, isn’t he? Are you two in bed together?’
‘I’m hanging up now,’ Luna laughed. Still smiling, she removed her earpiece and shook her head. Only to notice that Stefan, who had somehow finished his own call without her noticing, was observing her with interest.
She quickly wiped the smile off her face and kept driving.
The entrance to David Martin’s farm was at the end of a long gravel road hemmed in by hedges on either side. Every so often a gap in the hedge revealed the fields beyond, full of green as far as the eye could see. After they pulled into his yard, Stefan petted a young border collie as Luna retrieved her satchel from the rear of the Land Rover.
As she shut the tailgate, David Martin emerged from the eighteenth-century brick farmhouse and, to her amazement, greeted Stefan with a hug.
‘It’s good to see you, old friend,’ Stefan said.
‘You too, you too,’ the older man replied, quickly sizing Stefan up. ‘You’ve put some weight on since you were last here.’
Stefan patted his stomach and replied, ‘It’s all muscle, of course.’
David extended his hand as Luna approached. ‘And you are?’
‘Luna Gregory, Mr Martin.’ Luna took his hand, which was firm and heavily callused. ‘Lady Wellstone’s personal assistant.’
He led them inside to the kitchen, a proper farmhouse affair with stone floors, wooden work surfaces and an enormous Belfast sink, as well as three dogs in various states of recline under the large oak refectory table.
‘The missus is gutted not to see you,’ David said to Stefan as he poured three cups of coffee.
‘It’s alright, I completely understand. This is a busy time of year, I know, and I appreciate you making time for me.’
David smiled at Luna, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling, and explained, ‘We’re in the middle of pea harvesting, and my wife is out supervising.’
‘So that’s what I saw in your fields – peas,’ she said.
‘Yes, and David also grows wheat and barley,’ Stefan said. Luna looked between the two men curiously and Stefan added, ‘I spent a summer here during university. Best summer of my life.’
‘Very popular down the local, if you catch my drift,’ David winked at Luna. ‘Girls were practically throwing themselves at this strapping Swede.’
‘Mr Lundgren remains popular with the ladies, I believe,’ Luna said drily. Then she pulled her laptop out of her satchel and switched it on. This little bit of Stefan’s history was definitely a revelation to her. She had no idea he’d spent time out here in Norfolk, and farming seemed such an unlikely summer project for someone with his skill set. It surprised her, too, that he’d voluntarily chosen to spend time in England as a young man, knowing what she knew of his past.
The content of his subsequent discussion with David was also a surprise. Unlike the previous day’s visits with tenant farmers living close to the estate, which had roughly followed the same outline as his other meetings that week, Stefan seemed to be looking to David for guidance.
He asked Luna to read off her notes from the farm visits, particularly some of the things they’d complained about, such as the impositions placed on them by the team at Arborage House, which stretched to not spreading fertilizer during peak wedding season. ‘Offends the brides’ noses, a bit of muck,’ one farmer had said with distaste. He talked about the ages of the farmers, which by Luna’s reckoning ranged from the mid-fifties to as old as seventy-two. The seventy-two-year-old and his wife were particular favourites of hers, and she had been concerned to see signs of neglect around their farm when she and Stefan had visited. Farming was a demanding way of life, she knew, and she worried that they were struggling to cope, though she had refrained from saying as much to Stefan.
Stefan also brought along his maps of the tenant farms, and it was clear here that he and David had already been in touch prior to this meeting.
‘You see here what I was talking about,’ Stefan said, pointing to a plot of pasture land adjacent to the equestrian centre.
David, in turn, listened carefully, occasionally asking questions to do with acreage, or the mix of arable and livestock farms. And then the two men had a long discussion about EU subsidies during which Luna quite frankly switched off.
She was none the wiser as to the real purpose of the visit when they left two hours later, David’s dogs chasing the Land Rover as they drove off down the lane. Stefan was behind the wheel now, so Luna had the luxury of taking in the surrounding countryside. As they rounded a bend, she saw a massive red machine the size of a small house working its way through the fields, and Stefan explained that this was a harvesting machine and the Martins were currently in a race against time to get in their final crop of peas for the year and transport it to an industrial freezing plant thirty miles away within the three-hour window before the peas started to lose their freshness.
He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about all this, and clearly nostalgic for the time he’d spent living in Norfolk. Luna was reminded how little she knew him, really, and how much he had changed since they had briefly come into contact twelve years earlier. It made her a little uneasy for some reason, and perhaps more reticent than she might otherwise have been as they began their return journey.
Shortly after they started out her phone rang.
‘Is that the very lovely Miss Luna Gregory?’ came a voice she knew very well, in an accent only slightly stronger than Stefan’s own.
‘Sören!’ she said happily. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’
Stefan looked over at her and she nodded, pointing to her phone.
‘I hear that my son is there visiting you, and so I am ringing to see how it is going.’
‘By strange coincidence, I happen to be sitting right next to your son at this very moment. Would you like to speak with him?’
‘Yes, but first you must tell me, Luna, is he pestering you? He can be very demanding, my son.’
‘Not at all, Sören, he has been very polite,’ Luna assured him, noting Stefan’s growing discomfort at the turn this conversation was taking.
‘You must be sure to tell me if he troubles you, and I will have firm words with him.’
Luna passed the phone to Stefan, remarking to herself, not for the first time, on how lovely Sören Lundgren was.
‘Hey, Papa,’ Stefan said briefly. ‘Ja…’ And then he said something in exasperation that Luna could only guess was along the lines of yes of course I’m being polite to her! He rang off, throwing the phone back to Luna, who put it on her lap and pursed her lips, trying not to smile. Stefan looked over at her, then back to the road. Then looked at her again and suddenly, with an impatient exhalation of breath, pulled the Land Rover over to the side of the road.
Placing an elbow on the steering wheel, he leaned toward Luna and said, ‘Miss Gregory, my father likes you very much.’
‘I like him too,’ Luna assured him.
‘Yes,’ Stefan said accusingly. ‘And other people on the estate, they like you very much too, I can tell. That old farmer yesterday, giving you scones to take away.’
‘Yes, well…’ Luna began defensively, though she wasn’t sure what she had to be defensive about.
‘And I see you on the phone earlier, with your…friend, was it?’ Luna blinked, saying nothing, and Stefan continued, ‘And you are laughing and chatting…’ Luna really was starting to wonder now what he was getting at. ‘And I see that you seem very friendly and relaxed with your friend, and with staff on the estate, and with my father. But not so much with me.’
Ah. So that was it. Luna looked Stefan in the eye.
‘See?’ he said. ‘There it is. That look of
yours, like winter in Hallviken.’ Luna opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished. ‘And I cannot help but think, Miss Gregory, I cannot help but think that perhaps I am to blame. That my previous…inappropriate flirtation has put you off. In which case…’ he trailed off.
And maybe, maybe if she’d been in a different mood, if she hadn’t just gotten off the phone with his father, if she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Kayla that night, and if Stefan’s expression had been a little less disarmingly vexed, Luna would have let him carry on, twist a bit.
But instead she interjected lightly, ‘In which case you would promise never to inappropriately flirt with me again?’
At this Stefan made an inarticulate noise, turning to face the wheel. Studying his hands for a moment, he eventually said quietly, ‘I cannot promise you that, I’m afraid, no.’ And then smiled that smile of his, the one that must have gotten him out of countless scrapes with his father.
Luna couldn’t resist – she burst out laughing. Stefan, too, started to laugh.
Eventually, she opened, ‘So, what would you like—’
‘I would like you to call me Stefan,’ he interrupted bluntly. ‘And I would like to call you Luna.’
‘Okay,’ Luna agreed, nodding slowly. And then, apropos of nothing, asked, ‘Are you hungry, Stefan?’
Twenty minutes later they were sat in front of the fireplace in The Glove in Hand, a gastro pub on the outskirts of Newmarket. The Glove was part of the estate portfolio, along with a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chieveley and a coaching inn and restaurant in the Highlands, and, Luna reasoned to Stefan, he might as well see it as part of his fact-finding mission.
‘The food here is also excellent,’ she smiled, ‘but that’s by the by.’ She actually preferred this to Le Oiseau in Chieveley; less formal, more filling. With its simple wood tables, Windsor chairs and flagstone floor, it was inviting, as was clearly evidenced by the bustling lunch trade it was doing. A young waiter dressed in black with an Arborage green apron came and took their order, depositing half a lager and a glass of white wine on the table.
‘So, I have been wondering,’ Stefan said, taking a sip of his beer. ‘Luna is an unusual name. Not common, I think.’
‘No,’ Luna said, slightly embarrassed. ‘And it’s not even my full name.’
Stefan looked at her expectantly and she drew a breath, adding reluctantly, ‘Stellaluna Gregory, that’s what’s on my birth certificate.’
‘Star and moon,’ Stefan said, lifting his eyebrows. ‘You must have been a…much anticipated baby.’
‘I am reliably informed that seraphim and cherubim descended from heaven to the birthing suite upon my arrival,’ Luna responded solemnly, pleased to elicit a laugh from him. And then, because the path this conversation was taking was uncomfortable for her, she added, ‘My form tutor in sixth year insisted that Stellaluna was too long for her to pronounce. She was threatening to call me Stella, so I took matters into my own hands.’
‘It suits you very well…Luna.’ He had a way of saying her name; something about the way he pronounced the ‘u’ that was similar to his father’s, but affected her in an entirely different way. She could actually perceive the movement of blood to…places it hadn’t been in a long, long time.
In an effort to distract herself, she changed the subject completely. ‘What were you hoping to achieve in your meeting with David Martin this morning? If you don’t mind my asking.’
‘I don’t mind your asking at all,’ he said, pausing to consider his response. ‘The rents paid by Arborage’s tenant farmers make up the majority of the estate’s income, by quite a long way. But they have been viewed in the past as…hmm, the term is “cash cow”, yes?’
Luna nodded.
‘And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think there is more that can be achieved there, with a bit of lateral thinking. David is a good strategic thinker, as well as a farmer, and I wanted to get his opinion.’
Luna sensed that there was more to this than Stefan was saying, but then their food arrived and the moment for further probing passed.
*
They arrived back at Arborage House in the late afternoon, leaving her with too little time to trust the train to get her into London by 7pm, when she was meeting Kayla. So in the end she suited up and took her motorbike, reliably the fastest way to get from Berkshire to Soho.
The expression on Patrice’s face when she walked into his loft, boots clomping against the reclaimed wood floor, was priceless.
‘Isn’t this the look we’re trying to get away from?’ he asked, stroking his precision cut, three-millimetre-thin beard. His jet black hair was similarly short, lending him the air of an illusionist. Which wasn’t far from reality, as far as Luna was concerned. Kayla had first brought her here on her return from living in Miami, where her work clothes had amounted to a series of LBDs, her previous boss having been a hotel magnate with…interesting ideas about uniforms for ladies. Luna had been bemoaning her woeful lack of clothes appropriate for the rarefied milieu of Arborage House when Kayla had snapped her fingers.
‘I know just the man to sort you out,’ she’d cried. So she’d brought Luna to see Patrice, an old friend of hers from art college who was in the process of forging a career for himself in costume design after years as a stylist to the fashion-challenged of Essex.
Patrice had taken one look at Luna in the most demure of her LBDs, which still stopped somewhere short of her knees, and shook his head. ‘This is not the look you should be going for.’ Subtlety, even modesty, Patrice argued, should be her watchwords from now on.
‘You have an unusual look,’ he said, indicating her eyes and hair, which at the time she wore in a tumbled mass of unreconstructed curls down her back. ‘But you need to rein it in, leave more to the imagination.’
He’d taught her the classic silhouettes that suited her ‘endomorphic’ figure best, and drilled into her the need to pay more for quality, picking out a capsule wardrobe of tailored dresses, trousers and accessories that would form the foundation of her new Arborage wardrobe. And it was Patrice who’d first suggested that she wear her hair up.
‘You look too young. Vulnerable,’ he’d said, standing behind her in front of the large full-length mirror in his loft. Scooping her hair off her shoulders and twisting it above her head, he said, ‘There, that’s Luna Gregory, personal assistant to the Marchioness. That’s a woman to be reckoned with. Think of it as if you’re playing a role, and the way you dress, the way you do your hair, your makeup, these are all tools to keep you in character.’
He’d been right. Looking the part had been key to Luna’s confidence coming into her new job. Now, two years later, she actually felt slightly uncomfortable wearing her hair down.
‘So, I have a few things for you to try tonight,’ Patrice said, kissing her lightly on both cheeks, only to be interrupted by Kayla bursting out of his loo in a blaze of colour and light, multiple bangles jingling along both wrists as she threw her arms around Luna.
‘Look at you,’ Luna marvelled, holding Kayla at arm’s length and raising a hand to touch her massive semi-fro. ‘You look like a lioness!’
‘That’s the idea, babe,’ Kayla laughed. Kayla’s father was West Indian and her mum was pure East End. As far as Luna was concerned, with her slanted green eyes and perfect, mocha-coloured skin, Kayla was a perfect combination of them both. And for someone whose best male friend was a stylist, Kayla was admirably wayward in her fashion choices, a magpie who happily mixed boho with Bollywood, with a little dash of Marvel Comics superhero thrown in.
‘Come and look at Patrice’s lovely onesies for the show,’ Kayla enthused, dragging Luna over to a rail full of furry catsuits.
‘I keep telling you, they are not onesies,’ Patrice sighed.
‘Mmm, feel, Luna.’ Kayla ran her hands along the length of multi-coloured costumes. ‘It’s like the wardrobe to Narnia.’
Snapping his fingers impatiently, Patrice held out a dress for Luna t
o try made of gauzy, slightly stiff black fabric. Patrice’s loft, Luna had discovered, had no changing room, so she started removing her Gore-Tex jacket, reminding herself that with fashion there was no shame.
‘Really, Patrice? Black?’ Kayla complained.
‘Your friend insisted.’
‘I’m supposed to fade into the background at these events,’ Luna said, depositing her jacket on the floor and easing her braces over her shoulders. ‘Like I’m not there.’
‘How boring. I could never do your job.’ Kayla’s eyes widened as Luna dropped her Gore-Tex trousers. ‘Stellaluna Gregory, what are you wearing under there?’
In truth, after getting back from Norfolk in the late afternoon, Luna hadn’t had time to do much more than strip out of her work clothes and hop straight into her motorcycle gear. She now stood clad in no more than Brazilian knickers, bra and white vest.
‘I was in a rush,’ she mumbled sheepishly.
‘You naughty, naughty girl!’ Kayla cackled.
Luna had found that Patrice tended to lead with his preferred choice, so she paid special attention to the way the dress felt as she lowered it over her head. It was crisp, almost, with a concealed zipper that ran the length of the back all the way up to its high neck. The sleeves were long and close fitting and the skirt was floor length and full. It made an evocative rustling noise when she moved.
Luna walked to the floor-length mirror and studied herself. The dress was certainly demure, monastic even. But the bodice skimmed her waist in an interesting way.
‘It’s the undergarments that will make this,’ Patrice said, running his hands up the curve of her side to cup her breasts in a way Luna would find thoroughly outrageous if she weren’t convinced he was gay. ‘I have something special I can order for you, a basque, which will correct your posture and show these off to their best effect.’ He looked back to Kayla, who was studying the dress sceptically in the mirror. ‘It will be quite something, I promise you, black or no black.’
